Jean-Philippe Gbamin cost Everton £25million but had his contract cancelled a year early after just eight appearances
Jean-Philippe Gbamin after signing for Everton
Jean-Philippe Gbamin after signing for Everton(Image: Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)
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Playing as a midfield anchor man in front of the defence might not be the most glamourous position in football with Eric Cantona infamously dismissing Didier Deschamps, who would win 103 caps for France and the World Cup, as a mere “water carrier”. But Everton have learned that it’s a key role.
Lee Carsley – who many are convinced was the fellow bald headed star Real Madrid should have snapped up as their replacement for Claude Makelele in January 2005 instead of his partner in the Goodison Park engine room Thomas Gravesen – once quipped that the Blues had to break their transfer record to replace him (shelling out £15million on Marouane Fellaini in 2008).
Idrissa Gueye played 236 appearances for Everton, scoring 10 goals across two spells for a total of seven years service. However, in between when the Senegal international joined petrodollar-fuelled Paris Saint-Germain in 2019 to go play alongside the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Neymar, the Blues sounded out a fellow West African to fill the void.
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Just shy of his 24th birthday at the time, Ivory Coast international Jean-Philippe Gbamin looked primed to have his best footballing days ahead of him after completing a £25m move to Merseyside and signing a five-year deal. Standing six inches taller than the diminutive 5ft 9in Gueye, he was an imposing specimen who had six seasons of regular football in Europe under his belt – three at French club Lens and then three in the Bundesliga with Mainz 05.
When Gbamin signed, Michael Ebert, the South West region’s Bundesliga reporter for Kicker, Germany’s leading sports magazine who had watched him play regularly for Mainz told the ECHO: “I think he has the kind of attributes that would make him a successful player in English football. He has a strong body and is physical so he should suit that style of play.”
Those words sound perversely hollow given that he turned out for just one-and-a-half games before a string of injuries kept him sidelined for the best part of two seasons. Snapped up while Marco Silva was in charge, Gbamin made his Everton debut as a half-time substitute for Andre Gomes in a goalless draw at Crystal Palace on August 10, 2019, and then played the full game in the 1-0 home win over Watford the following week. But those 135 minutes proved to be his sum total for the Blues that season.
First, he was sidelined with a hamstring injury, but in a campaign that was disrupted by the global coronavirus pandemic, by the time the action resumed in June, with Carlo Ancelotti having replaced Silva the previous December, Gbamin had ruptured his Achilles tendon. That ensured he didn’t return to the side until he made an 11-minute cameo off the bench, replacing James Rodriguez in the 1-1 draw at home to Crystal Palace on April 5, 2021, played behind closed doors.
After that he was straight back onto the treatment table with an inner ligament injury and didn’t take to the field again until Rafael Benitez gave him a start against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux on November 1, 2021. With the Blues already 2-0 down by half-time, Gbamin was hooked at the interval and replaced by Fabian Delph in a game they’d eventually lose 2-1.
Although by this time, Gbamin was staying fit, there would be only 20 more minutes of playing time for him in the Premier League in the shape of a stoppage-time introduction at the end of a goalless draw at home to Tottenham Hotspur on November 7, 2021, and finally 19 minutes off the bench as a patchwork line-up secured a 1-1 draw at Chelsea on December 16, 2021. That night at Stamford Bridge saw Ellis Simms spearhead the attack on his debut, Jarrad Branthwaite scored his first Everton goal and the visitors only named seven of a permitted nine substitutes on the bench.
Everton splashed out a combined £50million on Moise Kean and Jean-Philippe Gbamin in August 2019
Everton splashed out a combined £50million on Moise Kean and Jean-Philippe Gbamin in August 2019(Image: Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)
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Gbamin then set off for a new start on loan at CSKA Moscow on February 21, 2022, signing just three days before Russia invaded Ukraine in what has proven to be the largest and most deadly conflict on European soil since the Second World War. The following season there was another loan spell, in Turkey with Trabzonspor but following the end of the 2022/23 campaign, the player’s agent came out with a bold declaration.
Bernard Collignon remarked how his client didn’t want to come back to Everton – even though he was in fact an expensive flop they were struggling to off-load – and told BBC Sport: “We will have to find another project for him. I am the one who chose Everton for him because it would have been a stepping stone to move on elsewhere.
“There was interest from Arsenal, Tottenham and even Jurgen Klopp wanted to sign him for Liverpool six months before but now Jean-Philippe wants to go back to Germany.
“It is unbelievable what has happened at Everton. Jean-Philippe is so disappointed with everything that has happened and how things have not worked out for him.
“The reason he suffered his initial injury was because he was not fit. That is why he got injured.
“They had to give him time and not rush him back into action. The club should have let him play in reserve games to achieve full fitness and also to gain confidence so that he would be ready for the intensity of the Premier League.”
The upshot from the outburst would be Gbamin getting his Blues contract cancelled by mutual consent almost a year early on September 2, 2023. Since then, he has played four five clubs in three years.
After a season in the French second tier with Dunkerque, Nantes gave him another chance in Ligue 1, but he ended up playing as many matches for their reserve team as their senior side. The second half of 2024/25 was spent with Zurich in the Swiss Super League before yet another spell in France’s top flight with Metz last season by which time he had moved back from a defensive midfield role to centre-back.
On July 5 this year, Gbamin made the unusual choice of going to Bulgaria as he signed a two-year deal with CSKA Sofia. Continuing to turn out in the heart of defence, he has played in 18 matches so far this term while he won the most recent of his 24 caps for Ivory Coast to date with a 29-minute outing as a substitute in their 1-1 draw with Cameroon in the Africa Cup of Nations on December 28, 2025, missing out, alongside Wilfried Zaha, on a place in their 2026 World Cup squad.
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